Chapter 9
Phoebe’s heart pounded in her chest. Something was truly amiss with the Duke of Crestfield, and she had underestimated it.
Perhaps her entire family had.
He seemed so self-possessed, so strong, so glorious, so beautiful, and yet he’d come apart in a dancing lesson.
“What happened?” she asked.
“A leg cramp,” he said tightly, turning towards her, imperious, his dark hair like a raven’s wing kissing his sharply cut cheekbones.
“That was not a leg cramp,” she said softly, knowing she should let it be but not able to.
“Yes, it was,” he countered, as if saying it with authority could make it so. “I don’t like anyone to see me in such distress, and so I vacated the room.”
“That’s very kind of you to spare us,” she said gently. “But completely unnecessary.”
He nodded, a muscle tightening in his jaw.
She hated it. The way he seemed to have withdrawn, not because of displeasure with her, but the pain that was so obviously deep inside him.
“Would you like me to massage it for you?” she teased.
He arched a brow, but the look on his face was so intense that she nearly flinched.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean to make light of it.”
“Yes, you did,” he said. “It’s very easy for all of you.”
“Easy?” she echoed.
“Easy to say that I should enjoy all this, that I should dance. Just because you all—”
“What?” she asked softly, her hands beginning to shake, stunned by his reply.
No one had ever challenged her quite like this. No one had ever held disdain for the way she or her family lived as he was doing at this moment.
She’d also never interacted with someone who was in so much pain, she realized. Yes, he was pretending that he liked Christmas here at the house, but she realized in that moment that he was pretending about far more than that.
He was pretending that he was all right, that he wasn’t hurting, and that he wasn’t wounded, but he was.
“Come, if you can forgive my terseness, I would be grateful. It is no fault of yours that I am so…out of sorts,” he said, offering his arm, softening. “I shall take you back inside. I think we’ve had enough play for the day, don’t you?”
“There is never enough play,” she replied honestly.
He ground his teeth. “Can you never stop?”
“Do you really wish me to?” she asked, her heart squeezing towards her throat.
He looked down at her, flummoxed. “I don’t know, Phoebe. I don’t know if I can do what you want, if I can be who you need.”
“I don’t want you to be anyone but yourself,” she replied.
“That’s not true,” he said with a dry, mirthless laugh. “That is a lie, Phoebe, and you better understand that. You do want me to be someone other than myself. You want me to be like a Briarwood, and I’m not.”
He dropped his arm, and he began to stride away from her.
“Wait,” she called. “I will stop. You don’t have to be the Pirate King. I’m sure we can ask Mr. Mulvaney.”
“Mulvaney?” he croaked, stopping and turning back to her.
“Yes,” she rushed. “He arrived this morning. While he may not be tall, he’s quite strong. He could be—”
“He’s not going to be your Pirate King,” he ground out. “I’ll be your bloody Pirate King.”
“Good,” she said, quite pleased that he cared so much about who her partner would be. “Because I don’t want it to be anyone else but you.”
He looked at her then, agony in his eyes.
“Can you not tell me?” she urged, longing to take away that pain.
“Tell you what?”
“Tell me what hurt you so.”
He looked away, staring off towards the snow-kissed trees on the horizon. “It is not your job to bear my burdens.”
“It could be,” she whispered, and then she crossed to him and placed her hands on his face.
He stilled, stunned, but he did not pull away.
She tilted his head to the side. She studied him carefully. “I see it, you know. The pain deep inside you. The pain you don’t let anyone else witness. What happened? What happened to make you like this?”
He took her hands and he slipped them away from his face, enfolding them in his strong ones. “I became a man. I grew up. I did what all children who will become dukes must.”
“No. This is different.” She sucked in a gasp. “Who asked you to grow up without joy?”
A muscle tightened in his jaw. “My father. All fathers ask their sons to grow up.”
She narrowed her eyes. “He didn’t ask you to grow up,” she countered. “He asked you to stop being yourself.”
He stepped away from her slowly, agonizingly. “He asked me to be a great man, and that’s what I am.”
Then, as if he couldn’t bear another moment of it, he squeezed her hands and gave her a pained smile. “Go inside, Phoebe. To your family. I will be all right. I promise.”
Then he turned on his boot’s heel, strode away from her, leaving her there, standing in the cold, flummoxed.
She wasn’t so sure she could believe him that he would be all right. Perhaps he would be all right for now, for a few years, but one day his heart would finally truly harden, and he would not be all right at all.
She didn’t know what to do with a man like him. And all those dreams she’d had of a magical Christmas, falling in love, where it was all going to work out, seemed to be slipping away from her.
She did not know how it was possible, how this could be happening. He had been brought to her. She was sure of it, and yet he could not seem to give in to it.
She was tempted to follow the sound of his footsteps crunching on the gravel, desperate to help him, but she slowly became angry with herself instead.
Because she couldn’t save him.
She knew that with every fiber of her being, and she had to be very, very careful, because if she pushed him too hard, if she convinced herself that she could change him, she would become one of the most unhappy people alive, and she was not going to do that.
Not for anything, not for him, not for her ideas about love.
She would not throw herself away, not because she thought she had the power to rescue someone else, not because she believed in dreams so entirely she was willing to throw herself away.
But, oh dear God, she hoped that somehow he would choose to see that he was worth so much more than just being a great man.